-AFP file pic
-AFP file pic

The Sino-American rivalry shows little sign of easing. If anything, the recent G7 summit gave every indication it is intensifying, as United States President Joe Biden corralled key Western allies and even reached what appears to be a modus vivendi in fraught relations with Russia — all aimed at isolating China.

Even as China looks outwardly to not be letting up in its defiance of US attempts to hem it in, there is a glimmer of hope that it is wising up to a rather dreary, likely counterproductive, propaganda offensive to "tell China's story", in the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Remarkably, the unabashedly nationalist Global Times recently carried an interview with former Singapore foreign minister George Yeo, who, while being generally defensive of China vis-à-vis the West, did not mince his words against the abrasive tactics of Chinese "wolf-warrior" diplomats.

"I think sometimes a more effective way to reply is to be ironic, and it is not a bad thing to smile more, even when you're giving a very serious reply."

Ironically, in its eagerness to have the world hear its side, China's official spokesmen have perhaps inadvertently oversold the narrative of the country's "unique" development model. China's remarkable economic success in recent decades is indisputably unique but only because of its scale, owing to the vastness of China.

Singapore can be said to be a pioneer of sorts in advancing what can more accurately be described as the East Asian development model, perhaps best encapsulated in the title of Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs, From Third World to First. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and even Hong Kong — all Confucian societies, like China — are similarly pioneers of this model.

Moreover, this was only possible with the US taking a benign view about the "offshoring" of manufacturing to the East.

China sped ahead only after it formally joined the World Trade Organisation, which the US could have blocked had it not been so sanguine about the greater global good of liberalising trade flows.

Then US president, Bill Clinton, had argued that political liberalisation inevitably follows economic liberalisation.

As Gideon Rachman observed in the Financial Times this week, "China's one real innovation was that the country had not liberalised politically as it had grown richer".

"As an authoritarian country, which is increasingly open about its ambition to challenge US military, political and economic power, China has belatedly provoked a backlash in Washington," added Rachman.

Predictably, the view from Beijing is that it is never out to challenge US supremacy, but only to preserve China's sovereign right to pursue policies commensurate with its growing heft.

That will be legitimate only if authoritarian political instincts are not tied to mercantilist economic ones, the latter rightly viewed as damaging to free and fair global trade, particularly if a nation of China's scale pursues it relentlessly.

What makes the China-US rivalry so intractable is the unfortunate reality that as China feels besieged by Western powers, it is increasingly rallying nationalist sentiments at home to counter the West. If the West now seeks to "demonise" China, China will pay back in kind.

The US is now portrayed as an incurable war-monger, determined to stop China's rise, by waging war again, if necessary. By such a telling, Chinese moves, no matter how aggressive and assertive, become legitimised.

It is perhaps also fortuitous from China's perspective that as Biden seeks to frame the rivalry with the Asian colossus in stark autocracy-versus-democracy ideological terms, US democracy today is hardly the beacon-on-the hill the world used to view with awe.

But there again, China is not helping any, least of all, itself. Nobody seriously argues that China becomes a Westernised liberal democracy. China's East Asian antecedents range from one-party electoral democracies, such as Japan and Singapore, to the multiparty ones like Taiwan and South Korea.

All respect the rule of law and their citizens are not unduly held back by a censorious or coercive state from speaking out freely.

Is it too much, as Singapore's Yeo asked, to expect humility from the rival global powers to learn from the good and the bad of each other?


The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak